Currently, there are various communication systems that interface with customers at home. One type are phone systems that handle signaling and audio information on a twisted pair network, for example. Another type are television content delivery systems that deliver signals from a provider to a user.
Several providers have implemented first generation systems that provide features such as caller ID to the TV screen. Such features allow consumers to efficiently interface with both telephone and television systems from the same terminal, if only partly. For example, satellite TV provides caller ID to the TV by transmitting video and audio signals from geostationary satellites to satellite dishes on the Earth's surface. In a satellite TV caller ID system, a phone modem that is part of the satellite TV system located at the home monitors phone calls off of a twisted pair connection and overlays caller ID information onto the TV screen when the phone modem detects a call. However, the phone modem used in this implementation cannot perform other enhanced communication services (e.g., SMS/MMS messaging to TV, video conferencing to TV, etc.); the phone modem is simply a monitoring device that feeds the caller ID information to the TV.
In addition, certain television content providers also provide caller ID to the TV via a database lookup procedure. For instance, when an incoming call is detected, the caller ID information is intercepted by the service provider (SP). The SP, for example, may look up the user's device (e.g., a gateway or a set top box) information of the destination number in the company's customer database. Once the correct information is found, the caller ID information is packaged and propagated through the provider's infrastructure, a signaling pathway that potentially includes many intermediate servers, before the signal is transmitted completely through the system to the appropriate home. Assuming that the correct database lookup occurred, the correct caller ID information will be displayed by the device on a TV monitor.
FIG. 1 illustrates this procedure by showing a block diagram generally depicting how, for example, only a hybrid fiber coaxial (HFC) network may interface with a twisted pair telephone network to provide caller ID to a home television screen. The various blocks in FIG. 1 correspond to categories of network elements, and the arrows connecting those blocks indicate flows of data between those network elements. For example, data corresponding to services is received from and sent to one or more backbone IP networks 1001 by routers represented by block 1002. Service data may include broadcast data (e.g., television broadcast programming), narrowcast data (e.g., VOD and switched digital video (SDV) programming) and unicast data (e.g., high speed data (HSD) service providing Internet connectivity to individual subscribers and VoIP or other type of telephone service). The backbone network may be, e.g., a system operator's national IP network, the Internet, some combination of the Internet and a system operator's network etc. Typically, several layers of routers (e.g., at the national, regional and local levels) are part of block 1002. Broadcast and narrowcast data is routed to universal edge QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation) devices (UEQAMs) that are typically located in distribution hubs, which devices are represented in FIG. 1 by block 1003. Unicast data is routed to and from cable modem termination system (CMTS) cores 1004, with those CMTS cores also typically located in distribution hubs. Downstream unicast data is sent from CMTS cores to UEQAMs. The UEQAMs then modulate the broadcast, narrowcast and unicast downstream data into RF frequency channels that are combined (block 1005) and communicated to QAM-modulated lasers 1006 for fiber optic transmission to individual service group nodes (block 1007). Blocks 1001, 1002, 1003, 1004, 1005, 1006, and 1008 (receivers for upstream data) generally comprise HFC components located at the service provider headend 1009.
The service group nodes convert the downstream optically-transmitted signals to electrical signals for distribution over coaxial cables to subscriber devices such as cable modems (CMs), set top boxes (STBs), media terminal adapters (MTAs), etc. These nodes typically comprise QAM receivers 1008 and amplifiers 1010 for boosting the electrical signals for transmission downstream via coaxial lines to subscriber homes. Meanwhile, upstream transmissions from subscribers are received at nodes 1007, converted to optical signals and forwarded to a QAM receiver 1008 by QAM-modulated laser 1006. The QAM receiver 1008 then forwards optical signals to the CMTS cores 1004 where those optical signals are converted to electrical signals and further processed.
Twisted pair network 1011 may interface with the HFC network at number of locations, including via a router 1012 located in service group node 1007. Router 1012 may be equipped to forward incoming/outgoing telephone call information on twisted pair network 1011 to headend 1009 via QAM laser 1006 and QAM receiver 1008. The telephone call information may then be cross-referenced with information in customer databases 1013 to determine where the incoming/outgoing telephone call should be routed. Databases 1013 maintained by a SP may include billing databases and conditional access databases, among others. Once headend 1009 has located the appropriate destination address for an incoming/outgoing telephone call, this information may be propagated through the headend via the CMTS 1004, QAM 1003, RF channels 1005, and laser 1006 to service group node 1007 and eventually to a home via coaxial lines. Once the telephone information reaches a home, it may be displayed on a television screen just as any other cable television signal.
Unfortunately, these and other types of network systems are error-prone. For example, the correct destination information may be retrieved only if the billing entries in the database are appropriately updated. In the event that old or incorrect entries exist in the records, the caller ID information may be sent to the wrong destination device (e.g., set top box), for example. In this scenario, customers would receive caller ID information on their TV screens for phone calls that were not intended for them.
For these and other reasons, a more simplistic approach that is less error-prone is needed to provide a service for supplying caller ID information to a television/personal computer (PC) display screen or other display.